iseecerulean

Shingling is very tedious work....glue a row on, tape it down to dry flat, wait for it to dry, take the tape off, reglue the couple that popped off, tape them down, wait for them to dry, take the tape off, sand the row, stain the row, wait for it to dry...then start the next row. 

I'm using shingles left over from the Fairfield...I didn't use them on the roof because I couldn't wrap my brain around the process.  In hindsight, it's a good thing I didn't use them on my first house, I may not have built a second...or a third, or a fourth....

While I was waiting for shingles to dry I stained and assembled the fence panels and the screen door, sanded and prepped the doorway to fit the door, and started cutting wood for the floor.

I got caught in a mind twisting circle....can't glue the walls together until the exterior finish is done...can't do the exterior finish until the trim is on...can't do the trim until the doors are hinged...can't hinge the doors until the floor is done...can't do the floor until the interior walls are done...can't do the interior walls until the wiring is done...can't do the wiring until the walls are up...argghhhh!

So...I glued the kit together...the walls are up! 

As it turns out I'm really glad I did, because the bottom of the walls don't line up.  If I had done my exterior finish first the front and side walls would have been out of alignment.

Now I have a starting point...I'll just have to deal with any 'could have/should have/would have' as issues arise.

I was planning on cedar board and batten siding for the Spring Fling.  When I dry fit the kit I noticed that while the grain of the wood ran vertically on the side walls, it ran horizontally on the front wall....so, board and batten is out, unless I paint.

There is a bag of wooden shingles in my supply closet left over from the Fairfield, which I could use as cedar shingles on the Spring Fling, only there aren't enough to cover all three walls.  I decided to put stacked stone on the walls up to the bottom of the windows, then shingle above them.

When I was a Lowe's a few weeks ago I noticed a stacked stone backsplash tile that I thought would lend itself nicely to this project, so Friday night I drove over to pick it up.

Either they didn't have what I remember seeing, I don't remember accurately, or I saw it somewhere else...because what I remember seeing was dark stones, and the only suitable tile at Lowe's was light stones. I probably should have gone to Home Depot, but it was getting late and the stores were closing, so I bought the light stones.

Saturday I used water based stain to darken the porous stone.  It was a tremendous hassle and took all day, but it worked well.  I let them dry overnight, then glued them to the wall on Sunday morning, before I went to visit my Dad.

Sunday afternoon I pried them off the wall, one by one, because they were crumbling and breaking.

I managed, with a razor blade and sandpaper, to return the wall to its pre-stone state.

Back to the drawing board....

I didn't do much work in my studio this weekend....my neighbor power washed his house and decks.  He rented some industrial sized sprayer that sounded like a  motorcycle gang was revving their engines right outside my windows.  Kate and I retreated to the other end of the house and drowned out the noise by watching movies.  He's done cleaning now, but my head still hurts.

In the early morning hours, before my neighbor was awake, I unpacked my shipment of LEDs and figured out how many lights I need for each house and where and I will place them.  Next I need to carve grooves in the walls for the wiring, craft fixtures to surround the bulbs, determine how I will hang the pendant lights, and make boxes of some sort to store the batteries.

The firebox is deeper than it should be, but the fireplace extends far enough into the room so that it's not hidden by the hutch, and the chimney is as deep as needed to look good once the roof is on the cottage.  I'm happy with it.  Well, except the piece of stone that is the mantle, I think I've stipled on 87 coats of paint so far but it hasn't said "done!" yet.  I'm going to wait until I get the walls finished before I tinker with it further.  I'm hoping once the walls are complete the mantle will look fine...but I'm not holding my breath.

Here's a shot of where the cottage is at so far. (The walls aren't glued together yet, they're being held together with masking tape.)  I'm going to set this build aside, clean off my worktable, then unpack the Spring Fling kit.